Blogging about life in Minnesota, raising our six kids with Down syndrome while battling Breast Cancer.

Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor in the morning the devil says, "Oh shit! She's up!"

Monday, June 10, 2013

It is Summer!

Friday was the last day of school for Angela. (the other boys were done earlier in the week.) It has been raining here in Minnesota for two weeks now, including this past weekend. Well, Saturday was without drips for a few hours; just enough to squeeze in Dean's family reunion.

I have always been one who dreaded the kids' summer vacation from school. I function much better when there is a schedule, or somewhere we have to be, etc. When my big kids were young, summer came with the rule "TV is turned off at 10:00 a.m." We lived in a small town then, and the kids spent most of the morning at the city pool just a block away. That sleep little town still had a noon whistle which prompted the closing of the pool. All the kids in town would hop on their bikes, racing home to eat lunch. The afternoons were spent with more pool time or biking around town getting into some kind of trouble. Everyone watched out for everyone else's kids. It was truly a "village". I miss that little town! When Angela in June of 1996, she was in the NICU 70 miles away and I was recovering from a c-section. That summer was really tough to keep track of the boys! I finally made an "in/out" board, that included a place to write down the phone number of whatever friend's house they were at.

Now we live in a suburb. There isn't really a town to ride around on their bikes, and...well...only one of mine has a bike, and she only rides it in parking lots with no outlets to busy streets! LOL I was anxious for school to end this year. Abel needs playmates and I needed a break from our busy school and extra curricular schedule to just settle in a bit.

So today, Monday June 10th, it is finally "summer" around here! I came up with a schedule which started this morning. It's 1:00, the kids just finished eating lunch and there has been no pestering me about the TV or iPad usage. Unfortunately, although it isn't raining today, our yard is a mud pit so playing in the back yard isn't an option. Instead we're getting ready to take a long walk then coming home for "quiet time" which includes reading books, listening to music, or just...you know...resting! (ok, the resting thing is for me.)

One thing my new schedule didn't include was time for me to take a shower. Oops! We will need to iron this out a bit, I think.

*note, Angela is not in these pictures because she didn't want to be.*

3 comments:

We are doing a preschool summer camp this week and then O starts his ESY next week. I'm definitely a schedule person, so I'm OK with him going to school during the summer, especially since it's still his current team running it.

If only it would get warmer and sunnier--I want to do some more outdoor and water stuff!